Ramnarine: T&T exporting LNG for 15 years now

Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine has hailed this country’s 15th year milestone of exporting Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) to the world.

In response to questions at the Senate sitting on Wednesday, Ramnarine said that this month marked 15 years since the first shipment of LNG set sail from Point Fortin in 1999 and since then close to 4,000 cargos of LNG have been exported.

Ramnarine said in the last five years there has been a shift in the exportation of the LNG to the United States which was the biggest consumer to other countries.

He said LNG was now being exported to the South American continent to countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chile which take up 45 per cent of the exports.

Ramnarine also disclosed the production of LNG over the years has been stable.

He provided figures for the LNG production over the period 2007 to 2013.

He said in 2007, 14.068 million metric tonnes per annum were exported; in 2008­­–14.4; in 2009­­–14.8; in 2010­­–15.0; in 2011–13.9; in 2012–14.1; and in 2013–14.3

Ramnarine said the Central Bank 2012 monetary report did note a 16.5 per cent drop in production but this was not an annual decline but a dip in the third quarter of 2011 when compared to 2010.

He said there was a production of 3.9 million tonnes in the third quarter of 2010 and in 2011 it fell to 3.3 million and the reason for this decline was due to maintenance works.

Ramnarine said a stable trend was expected to continue as major maintenance works were completed by Atlantic LNG.

The ministry, he added, has been proactively micro-managing the natural gas supply and he has taken an aggressive approach in the development of new natural gas resources.